Roots and Wings

“Roots and Wings” is an on-going project close to my heart. I made the original work in the style, “Uprooted”, during a camping trip over a Memorial Day weekend following my first winter of ever experiencing the effects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). So happy to be out in the woods and sunshine after a particularly rainy, gray winter, I ran around gathering branches, root balls, and bark remnants around our camp ground and arranging them to build a tree. Gradually the idea formulated, and by the end of the weekend, I had created quite the project for myself. I photographed what I had laid out with the materials, then packed them all up to bring to the studio and begin to clean, coat, and assemble the tree, then surround it with a black and white, silver gelatin print collage of a forest.

“Roots and Wings” is the second project I created in this style as a commission for a local Portland company. The title comes from a conversation with my mother-in-law telling me how she raised all 4 of her sons with roots and wings, a grounding sense of home and values and understanding of who you are, with the confidence to go out in the world and make your own fate. I felt that this spirit really embodies how I feel about the works.